Car-Free Kagurazaka Festival

The 46^th annual Kagurazaka Festival was done for 4 days, from 26^th to 29^th July. The first two days were for street market of Japanese Lantern Cherry “Hoozuki” ,food & drink market. Evening town walking tour guided by the NPO Ikimachi Club was also done. The latter two days were for Owaodori Street Dancing Parade. 

        The Kagurazaka Street was car-free during the dancing parade for years, and car-free was applied the first two days for the first time this year. The street market is placed on the border of sidewalk and traffic lane, and the congestion level on the sidewalk was far beyond capacity, especially around the Bishamonten Temple which is the main quad of the festival, and the merchants association has been requesting to the police to make the street car-free during the period of market. But it was not accepted because the police considered it difficult to stop the traffic for four nights in a row. But it was finally realized because the risk of traffic accident has risen high, and it was not comfortable for either pedestrians or drivers.

         It was expected that congestion level would be lower, but actually it was about the same, especially around Bishamonten, because more people came. Traffic lane was full with pedestrians too, and many people were sitting on the curb and eating and drinking what they bought at the markets. So it was confirmed that people like to sit at where possible even though the physical environment is not so great, when they have food and/or drink. It is a public life, but having too many people is not quite desirable. Many people avoided this crowd. The evening tour did not have so many attendants, as it was not easy and comfortable to reach and find to the reception. Having too many visitors can be a problem.

         Car-free for the market evenings was a new challenge and overall was successful to provide more space for pedestrians. The layout of the market to make more access ways between the sidewalk and traffic lane should be considered. 

Sidewalk at Bishamonten Temple, Kagurazaka Street

Kagurazaka Street, car-free, traffic lane

Many people were sitting along the curb

Shops demolished for Okubo Street Widening

Several shops and restaurant facing to the Kagurazaka-Ue crossing have mostly been demolished. More demolishing is planned (shown in yellow).　The widened space should be used for pedestrians, not for through traffic. The community is worried about divided by the wide road with more through traffic.

Before demolished, there were two shops and a restaurant facing to the crossing.

Now the shops are gone.

The street will be widened to 30 meters, even though traffic volume is decreasing.

Historic Alley District Preservation Committee Meeting on March 21

Today, the 6th "Historic Alley District Preservation Committee Meeting" was held in Kagurazaka. The committee is placed under the Kagurazaka Machidukuri Koryukai, a local community development organization. The local government announced the policy to preserve the historic townscape and also improve the safety measures, and basically approved. Survey and discussion to reach to agreement with each stakeholders will be started. The minimum width of alley will be 2.7m and district plan will be made.

Preserving the Scenic Features in the Kagurazaka Alley District

   The Wakana Inn along the Hyogo Alley stopped operation, and the property right may be transferred. The Kagurazaka 3-4-5 Chome District Plan was enforced in 2007 by the Shinjuku Local Government, partially amended in 2011. Now the plan is facing a challenge - is this plan effective to preserve the special historic townscape?

   The Kagurazaka Machizukuri (Community Design) Koryukai formed a special committee to make a better and more effective district plan to preserve the district. Six years have passed since the residents and local government officials discussed on the issue, and the plan has not been authorized yet. In such condition, to preserve the special historic features of the district, we believe it essential to speak out, get more residents and Kagurazaka supporters involved, and have more wisdom concentrated to make it a stronger movement.

  The Wakana Inn was an important symbol of historic and cultural feature of Kagurazaka. We sincerely hope it will not be lost, and ask those whom concerned and the local government to follow the manner of land use in the context of community development and management done in the past 25+ years.

  It is the very basic thing, that the townscape of the district, which is the treasure of Kagurazaka, is preserved by the residents’ actions. We will broaden our actions through “Save the Kagurazaka” movement. We sincerely appreciate your support.

                             Yokichi ISHII (Master of Sukeroku)                           

Kagurazaka Pattern Language Workshop

On  Friday Jan 13, a seminar-workshop to deeply understand and analyse the characters of Kagurazaka" was held by the NPO Ikimachi Club.

 It started by a lecture on the Pattern Language, followed by a workshop to understand and edit the key words to patterns - description of environments in Kagurazka. Some 20 participants worked on the task, in three groups of "District", "Main Streets", "Alley Neighborhood". 

 A pattern language cannot be made in a day, but it is important that citizens work on it and raise the awareness to the fragile and precious environment to be succeeded over generations.

Why “Save the Kagurazaka ?”

Last time I wrote about the closing of Wakana Inn, which was known as the novelist’s place located in a historic district in Kagurazaka. I have to let you know another disappointing thing today. The widening of Okubo Street, which was decided in 1946, has started and because of that, two shops on the street corner, Kawai Earthenware Shop and Yamashita Japan (lacquer ware) Shop were closed at the end of last year. In a district facing to the street 1/4 of the community members will have to move out, all in another.

What we mostly concern is that Kagurazaka will be divided by the widening of the street.

In 1991 The Kagurazaka Community Development (Machizukuri) Organization was formed by the residents. Its main function has been succeeded to The Kagurazaka Machizukuri Koryukai, and we have been working on community development over 25 years with the local government Shinjuku Ward.
Kagurazaka’s flourishing features today is the result and fruit of the long years of activities. We very much worry about deeper and wider division of Kagurazaka by the widening the Okubo Street, from 18 to 30 meters and double the traffic lanes.
We have respected our historic street-scape, and want to keep “human scale”, “richness in culture” and “good sense of tradition” of Kagurazaka. We sincerely hope that the Okubo Street widening will not give severe damages to the vulnerable value of the place. We will continue our activities so that “Kagurazaka will not lose the special sense of the place and stay as The Kagurazaka for long”.
We named the facebook site “Save the Kagurazaka” to fight and preserve the sense of Kagurazaka which now is in serious danger.
Yokichi Ishii (Master of Sukeroku)

Historic alley of Kagurazaka where Wakana Inn is located.

Okubo Street, now 18 meters wide but is planned to be 30 meters wide.